Advanced business analytic Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Advanced business analytic - Essay Example This paper is an executive summary of the case study on Project planning and project success by Dov Dvir et al.The increase in the management of business through projects and the increase in the complexity of project management The fact that planning is integral to project management is being analysed in this paper. The authors through an empirical analysis present the benefits of project planning for success in projects. The paper also presents an analysis on various aspects of project planning and project success from various perspectives.Project Planning: Project in itself is considered as a unique endeavour to accomplish a specific or a set of goals Richard Newton (2005). He further states that the project being the integration of a set of complex tasks makes it clear that planning is an essential element for success. Furthermore, it is also agreed that the planning is a complex process and not always achievable in case of projects as the outcome of a project tend to change with the end user requirements.Although it is widespread that the project planning is a complex process not able to accomplish in its entirety for a project, the process of not creating a plan would probably lead to failure as argued by Dov Dvir et al (2002). The authors also state that a milestone based planning of the projects is a more successful and reliable method of planning as opposed to the planning in its entirety. The fact project planning provides a scope for the project and through the setting of the milestone the members of the project team gain an idea on what is to accomplish which provides a perspective on the sequence of tasks to be performed. It is imperative that the project captures the end-user requirements comprehensively in order to successfully complete the project to the expected specifications. The Richard Newton (2005) further argues that a successful project manager should give importance to every detail in capturing the end-user requirement more than planning as planning is an integral part of the project whilst the former is the cause for the mere existence of the project itself. Alongside, the planning using milestone is also approved to be a far easier approach to project planning as the details to how the milestone is achieved is up to the individual performing the project task rather than the project team as such. Success Measures: Success in projects is measured under four dimensions argued by the writers as mentioned below 1. Meeting Design Goals: The design goals attribute to the actual purpose of the project and the reason for the inception of the project itself. This is argued as a critical success factor to all stakeholders in the projects irrespective of the scope of the project. 2. Benefit to Customer: This is the most critical success measure for the project as the end-user is the one who endorses the success of the project. 3. Commercial success 4. Future Potential The last two success dimensions are not always measurable as in the case of the case study on hand where the research is conducted on the data collected from Israeli Defence Forces. Research methodology and data A quantitative research analysis using statistical methods was conducted by the writers to analyse the importance of project planning and success criteria in Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). The primary research data was collected through questionnaires with weighing the answers in a scale of 1 to 7 where 7 is the extremely positive answer and vice versa. The research on the data was collected from the personnel and the end-users of the project to identify the success measures and the effects of project planning. With the case research focusing upon the R&D projects in specific, the questionnaire also captured project specific issues in order to identify the role of project

Meeting the Challenge of Educating English Language Learners Scholarship Essay

Meeting the Challenge of Educating English Language Learners - Scholarship Essay Example BIBLIOGRAPHY noted that these foreign students are the fastest growing group entering our schools, especially in urban settings. Although there are millions of immigrants in this country and endless resources geared towards their education, the educational performance of our new community members is one of the lowest in the country ( BIBLIOGRAPHY). As an educator for over seventeen years, the author of this paper believes that the challenge of educating English as Second Language learners is without a question a task which has been adequately explored by only a few districts. These districts are the ones that are truly prepared to see the value of language and culture as an opportunity to educate learners and to effectively integrate them into our schools and community at large. Hence, it is imperative for all districts to understand the magnitude of the challenge of teaching language and content to English as Second Language learners within the same hours of a day and in the same nu mber of days per year as English learners. The Challenge Despite the efforts of educational leaders to educate all students it is interesting to analyze the impact of this education on newcomers. Firstly, although school districts continuously develop new initiatives and interventions the end result is usually the same - the initiatives essentially create a lack of access to meaningful education to the newcomer. Thus, one can conclude that school districts are still in the dark about how to specifically and effectively educate newcomers since most of the interventions become new failing attempts to successfully educate these students from foreign countries. A second rationale for the lack of effectiveness of these new initiatives is the fact that former immigrant students were intimately connected to members with the same cultural and language background. The author of this paper believes that it is this network of support which provided a source of strength and acculturation for th e continued success of a given group. However, it is evident that the United States is now experiencing a tremendously large increase of students who are new immigrants who are isolated from mainstream society due to the lack of connections, resources and networking experienced by the former immigrants. At an alarmingly rapid rate more and more immigrants from oppressed nations are entering our cities, usually, as refugees. As such the challenges of these immigrant students are more severe than any of the previous groups. Consequently, it is has become critical to bridge the cultural and linguistic gaps of these immigrant students. Educational institutions within the school districts are not prepared or equipped to assimilate the multiple academic and socio emotional needs of these new students and their families. Accordingly, the institutions are faced with the daunting task of educating individuals who not only have diverse language and cultural backgrounds in English but also ind ividuals who have limited exposure to formal education. Moreover, many of these students have experienced trauma in their home land and are now facing the acculturation shock of trying to fit in to our communities. The assimilation process which incorporates student engagement, parent engagement, discipline problems and eventually student exclusion has a significant impact in the culture of the school. Exclusion, the foremost by-product of

Vodafone Group Management of Market Risks

Vodafone Group Management of Market Risks What is the role played by options, futures and forward contracts in managing market risks? The research critically analyzes this through the case study of Vodafone Group Plc. It first identifies the various factors that determine these risks since market risk includes different types of risks like commodity price risks, interest rate fluctuations risks and currency risks. Through the case study, it further aims to evaluate the effectiveness of using above derivatives, in managing market risks. By considering the portfolio of company designed to hedge a particular amount of risk; the research also aims to critically evaluate the individual contributions of each of the above in risk management and also of the portfolio as whole. Introduction: Oxford dictionary defines risk as a situation involving exposure to danger or expose (someone or something valued) to danger, harm, or loss (Oxford Dictionary). For a business entity Risks are connected to possible uncertainties that can result in negative effect on the entity. With the emergence of World Markets and various types of risks, risk management has become an integrated part of firms today. Different types of risks require different methods to handle, prevent or sometimes to absorb and benefit from risks. The downfall of risks has always been highlighted however they do have some arbitrage that results in potential gains. The Basel Committee that was formed in 1974 laid the regulatory framework for Financial Risk Management. (McNeil, Frey and Embrechts, 2005). Basel II (2001) defines Financial Risk Management to be formed of 4 steps: identification of risks into market, credit, operational and other risks; assessment of risks using data and risk model; monitoring and reporting of risk assessments on a timely basis and controlling these identified risks by senior management.'(Alexander, 2005). It thus determines the probability of a negative event taking place and its effects on the entity. Once identified risk can be treated in following manners: Eliminated altogether by simple business practices. These are the risks that are detrimental to the business entity. Transferred to other participants. Actively managed at firm level. (Alexander, 1996). The risks basically depend on the time value of assets. Moreover with the increased level of multinational functioning of business entities and the highly volatile nature of markets, risk management has now become a critical part of running the business. It therefore becomes essential to understand as well as analyze the various factors that determine risks and the preventive measures implemented against them. Also the hedging techniques being considered do not always ensure profits. The research would thereby include a detail study of the effectiveness of the methods implemented. One more important factor is the cost incurred. Risk management incurs certain costs and the process would therefore prove to be futile if the costs incurred don’t offer proportionally benefits. Literature Review: Market Risk constitutes of commodity risk, interest risk and currency risks. Commodity price risk includes the potential change in the price of a commodity. The rising or falling commodity prices affect the producers, traders and the end-users of the various commodities. Moreover if they are traded in foreign currency, there arises the risk of currency exchange rate. These are normally hedged by offering forward or future contracts at fixed rates. This is especially important for commodities like oil, natural gas, gold, electricity etc whose prices are highly volatile in nature. (Berk and Demarzo, 2010) Interest Risk relates to the change in interest rates of bonds, stocks or loans. A rising rate of interest would effectively reduce the price of a bond. Increased interest rates result in increasing the borrowing costs of the firm and thereby reduce its profitability. It is hedged by swaps or by investing in short term securities. Currency risks arise from the exceedingly volatile exchange rates between the currencies of different countries. For e.g. Airbus, an aircraft manufacturing company based in France requires oil for its production. Oil being traded in US dollars and the company doing trading in Euros, has a foreign exchange risk. It would be therefore beneficial for Airbus to enter a forward contract with its oil suppliers. Options are another way of hedging against currency risks. (Berk and Demarzo, 2010). Forward contracts, Futures and Options are called the Financial Derivatives and are used largely to reduce market risks. Walsh David (1995) explains that if two securities have same payoffs in future, they must have same price today. Thus the value of a derivative moves in the same way as that of underlying asset. This is called arbitrage. Hedging of risks is nothing but the holder of an asset has two positions in opposite directions. One is of the derivative and opposite position is on the under-lying asset respectively. As such if the value if the asset decreases then value of the derivative will also decrease. But the change in value is off-set by the opposite positions to each other. Thus risk is reduced. This is called hedging. Long Hedge refers when an investor anticipates increase in market price and therefore buys future contracts. Short Hedge is when an investor already has a futures contract and expects the value of asset to fall and therefore sells it beforehand. (Dubofsky and Miller, 2003) Long Hedge Short Hedge Change in value of position Change in price Change in value of position Change in price Fig.1 Hedging (Dubofsky, D and Miller, T. Jr. 2003) Forward Contracts- These involve buying or selling specific asset at a specific price at a specified time. It is basically a contract between two parties to trade a particular commodity or asset at a particular rate on a specified time. The buyer is said to be in ‘long position’ while the seller hols the ‘short position’. These are Over the Counter (OTC) Derivatives. These are used for locking-in the price and require no cash transfers in the beginning, thereby involve credit risks. Their main feature is the flexibility as forward contracts can be tailored as per the requirements of the traders. They are typically used to hedge the exchange rate risks. (Claessens, 1993) Futures- These are more standardized than the Forward contracts. They are traded at Foreign Exchanges. The standardized contract specifying the asset, price and delivery time is either bought or sold through broker. The delivery price depends on market and determined by the exchange. The default risk in futures is minimized due to clearinghouse. It acts as centred party and does the ‘marking to market’ of traders’ account; by doing profit-loss calculations daily. Initial margin amount is required and futures hence involve margin calls. Minimum credit risk is involved; but being standardized contracts, these cannot be tailored to individual demands. (Hinkelmann and  Swidler, 2004). Futures could be contracts on real assets for e.g. gold, oil, corn etc. or they could also be contracts of financial nature for e.g. currency, interest rates etc. (Tamiso and Freedman, 1995). Fig.2: Hedging through Futures. (Walsh, D. 1995) Options- The holder can buy from or sell to, the asset at a strike rate at a future maturity date. However the holder of the option has no moral obligation to do so. The cost of buying the option involves a premium which is to be paid up front. The option that enables the holder to buy an asset is called Call option while in Put option the holder is able to sell the asset. (Claessens, 1993) These can be bought Over the Counter (OTC) at a bank or can be exchange traded options. An American option could be exercised at any time before it expires. On the contrary, a European option has to be exercised on maturity. Option is normally executed when its strike price is less than price of the stock. However, is the price of the stock is less than the strike price; the holder will not execute the option. Black and Scholes (1973) gave the formula to determine the price of a European option. According to the formula, the value of Call option is given by: where The value of Put option is given by: P = Ke-r (T-t) – S + C = N(-d2) Ke-r (T-t) – N(-d1) S. Where N (.) is a cumulative normal distribution function s- standard deviation of the share price, rf- risk-free interest rate per annum and t- time to expiry (in years). The above formula, also known as the Black-Scholes option pricing model; is based on the assumptions that the stock doesn’t pay any dividends, it is possible to buy or sell even a single share, there are no costs incurred in these transactions and that arbitrage opportunity doesn’t exist. According to Black and Scholes (1973), the option value as a function of the stock price is independent of the expected return of the stock. The expected return of the option, however, will depend upon the expected return of the stock. Hence as the price of underlying asset increases, the price of option will also increase owing to their linear relationship. Black and Scholes (1972) further carried on various empirical tests to validity of the formula. They observed that price paid by the buyers of the option was higher than that shown by the formula. This was mainly because the transaction costs that are incurred are always paid by the buyers of the options. These costs were found to be high for options of high risks and vice-versa. The sellers of options thus got the price that was predicted by the formula. The case study would make use of this formula to determine the value of options held by the company. Walsh David (1995) explains that options have a non-linear relation with payoff. Its payoff increases with the price of the asset if it is in-the-money and has a constant payoff which is the option premium if it is out-of-the-money. On the contrary, futures and forward contracts have a linear relation with the payoffs in both, profit as well as loss. Therefore options might be preferred over futures and forwards for hedging. He further highlights the difference between hedging through futures and forward contracts. While in forward contracts, the company merely sets up a rate for future trading, it doesn’t involve any monetary transfer. Futures however make use of margin account and marking to market is done daily. Hence the results of futures over their time span vary greatly with those of forward contracts. Hence the individual contributions of each to risk management would be calculated during the research. The case study would also include a study the similarities and diff erences in futures, forward contracts and options and their individual effects on risk management. Data and Methodology: Objectives: The research aims to: Increase the understanding of the factors that determine market risks. Understand the haven provided by financial derivatives against these risks. Have a clear understanding of the methods or risk management techniques. Understand the process of risk management. Understand the intricacies of derivative markets. Data and Methodology: The Research is essentially a case study of Vodafone Group Plc. Primary data would include the information of the forward contracts with service providers, options and futures of the company in the market. Secondary data would be Qualitative in nature, comprising online journals, relative case studies and books. The research would be carried out in the following steps: Depending upon the nature of company, determine that factors that would affect the risk faced by the company. Evaluate the percentage of risk faced by the company. Determine the amount of this risk, which the company would want to hedge. The data would then be utilised to determine the amount of risk hedged by each of the above and then determine the total risk hedged by portfolio as whole. Calculate the cost of hedging the risk. Compare and contrast the findings with the defined ‘Effective Risk Management.’ Critically analyze the results. Suggest improvements if any, in the portfolio. Calculate the risk hedged with the suggested changes. Proposed Timetable: Date Activity 6th May, 2011 Submission of final proposal (By) 20th June, 2011 Collection of data as required by case study and start working on calculations. 1st July, 2011 Define the parameters for ‘effective risk management’ and complete calculations. Complete the initial declaration pages of report. 15th July, 2011 Complete the literature review pertaining to case study. Finish report writing till that part. (up to 5000 words) 1st August, 2011 Compare and contrast the findings to the established parameters. Evaluate results. Some more relative literature review. 15th August, 2011 Finish writing the calculations, explaining results. Complete up to 10,000 words of report. 1st September, 2011 Complete the report and submit the first draft for feedback. 15th September, 2011 Redraft using the suggested changes. Final draft for submission 19th September, 2011 Final submission of the report. REFERENCES Alexander, C. (1996). The Handbook of Risk Management and Analysis. West Sussex: John Wiley Sons. Alexander, C. (2005). ‘The Present and Future of Financial Risk Management.’ Journal of Financial Econometrics, 3 (1), pp. 3-25. JSTOR (Online). Available at http://jfec.oxfordjournals.org/ (Accessed: 8th March, 2011). Berk, J and Demarzo, P. (2010). Corporate Finance. 2nd edn. Boston: Pearson. Black, F. and Scholes, M. (May Jun., 1973). ‘The Pricing of Options and Corporate Liabilities.’ The Journal of Political Economy.81 (3) pp. 637-654. JSTOR (Online). Available at http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1831029.pdf?acceptTC=true (Accessed: 5th May, 2011). Black, F. and Scholes, M. (May 1972). ‘The Valuation of Option Contracts and a Test of Market Efficiency.’ The Journal of Finance.27 (2) pp 399-417. JSTOR (Online). Available at http://www.jstor.org/stable/2978484 (Accessed: 5th May, 2011). Claessens, S (1993). World Bank Technical Paper no 235.Washington DC: The World Bank. Dubofsky, D and Miller, T. Jr. (2003). Derivatives: Valuation and Risk Management. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hinkelmann, C  Ã‚  Swidler, S.  (2004). ‘Using futures contracts to hedge macroeconomic risk in the public sector.’ Derivatives Use, Trading Regulation.  10(1),  pp. 54-69. ABI/INFORM Global (Online) available at http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=0did=679304171SrchMode=2sid=1Fmt=6VInst=PRODVType=PQDRQT=309VName=PQDTS=1304643921clientId=18060 (Accessed: 21st March, 2011). McNeil, A.J., Frey, R., Embrechts, P. (2005) Quantitative Risk Management. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Oxford Dictionary (Online) available at http://oxforddictionaries.com/?attempted=true (Accessed: 21st March, 2011). Tamiso, R. Freedman, R. (1995). ‘Confronting Uncertainty: Intelligent Risk Management with Futures.’ Artificial Intelligence in the Capital Markets: State-of-the-Art Applications for Institutional Investors, Bankers and Traders, Probus Publishing, Chicago. pp. 209-222. Available at http://www.inductive.com/RMR-FUT.pdf . (Accessed: 4th May, 2011). Walsh, David.   (1995). ‘Risk management using derivative securities.’  Managerial Finance.  21(1),  pp. 43. ABI/INFORM Global (Online).  Available at http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=6did=4708471SrchMode=2sid=3Fmt=6VInst=PRODVType=PQDRQT=309VName=PQDTS=1301258415clientId=18060 (Accessed: 27th March, 2011).

Criticism Essay -- essays research papers

Criticism   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Criticism can be negative or positive; the way it is said may be good or bad. Why do most of us want to avoid giving or receiving criticism? The purpose of criticism is to encourage positive outcomes (what the giver wants). Ideally, it brings balance into our lives, provides us with a basis of comparison, and brings truth, honesty, and intimacy. Hopefully, it gives us honest feedback—a balance of praise and criticism. Do most of us want to know how we are doing?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Why do successful business people actually seek out criticism from people they respect? Why do people feel they are unfairly criticized? Are tone of voice, choice of words important? What communication skills does one need to criticize well? Why do those who are criticized act defensively? Can one be defensive and actually hear what is being said?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  RECEIVING CRITICISM:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Is this a great source of stress? Have the past criticisms from parents, teachers, and other made us into the person we are today? The receiver must try must try to personalize the criticism and view it as information worthy of examination (either to accept or reject). Often we associate the one criticizing us with hostile bosses or other in the past.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Is the criticism valid? What is the intention? What action is needed to be taken?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  What is the worst part of receiving criticism? (Loss of control, emotional involvement, etc.). How do we normally react? (Defensive, stop listening, cry argue, blame others, feel rejected) How can we reduce the stress? (Perhaps see criticism as just information). Do we normally ask several questions: is it â€Å"legitimate†? Does the person have a right to criticize us (neighbor, parent, and spouse, boss)? What is the intention—blame me, embarrass me, destroy me? What words set us off in anger—name used, should have, must have, always, never, but†¦   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Does the criticism tell you what is wrong and what is expected in the future? Is the information correct?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.† Need to deal with criticism correctly: ask question to understand exactly what the person means, find out the intention of the person means, how one rectifies th... ...make you feel inferior without your consent.† We often carry on an internal dialogue with ourselves in which we criticize ourselves. Self-criticism is the most popular form of criticism. We focus on negative aspects of behavior, instead of evaluating ourselves both positively and negatively. One needs touse self-criticism to inspire oneself to new heights, not to lows. Often we defeat ourselves by focusing on criticism rather than a remedy. We are usually too general: â€Å" I made a mess of everything.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Make Criticism into a Positive Force   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Criticism is a vital part of our lives. If used well, it can empower us; if used badly, it can destroy careers, relationships, and destroy self-confidence. Key questions to ask: Is the person giving criticism off limits? Does it have value? Does it call for a specific action? It is worse to get no criticism than to receive it. When criticizing others, remind the person you are not personally criticizing others him/her but a specific action. Avoid criticizing in front of others. Maintain the other person’s self-esteem—don’t destroy them. Criticism is a commutation tool to bring about change.

Benzodiazepine as a pain medication in emergency settings

Emergency departments frequently come across a wide range of patient with multiple types of presentations. The most common feature among them is pain, which may be acute or chronic. Acute pain can be due to appendicitis, or a gun shot wound, or acute exacerbation of a chronic pain. Chronic pain is usually in the cases of rheumatic arthritis, or cancer patients. Regardless of the type of the pain, the medical personnel are always needed to decide which pain medication is needed for a particular patient.Understanding of individual drugs, their mode of action, their potency, and their possible interactions with the person’s condition or with other drugs is necessary to prevent any adverse consequences of prescribing. There are many pain killer drugs now available in the market. With the rapid progression in the pharmaceutical industry, there is a larger pool for the health care workers to prescribe from, and specification for all types of conditions. The UK government has since t hen put up many guidelines to help practitioners prescribe the right drug.Since many of the drugs are given based on the intensity of the pain described by the patient, the use of pain scales is one of the key instruments in the measurement of pain. The efficacy of these pain measurement scales have been brought into question from time to time. However, up till now, very few if any alternatives have been as useful as this one. Apart from the administration of the pain killer drugs, there are many legal aspects that need to be considered as well. Many patients, when given a certain kind of pain killer drugs, may develop tolerance and addiction to the drugs.Again, there may be patients who may be addicts, and present themselves deliberately to get their â€Å"dose† of the drugs. The recognition of patients who may be developing addiction, or are using hospital as a source of addiction is very important which may require certain corrective and legal measures. Therefore, the admi nistration of painkiller drugs also holds a certain amount of legal perspective as well. Apart from the use of such painkillers, there are many studies and researches that point to the role of various psychotropic drugs in the management of pain.While the association may seem sparse on the up front, patients with pain are frequently agitated and worried, and may require some â€Å"calming of the nerves†. In such patients the use of psychotropic and anti anxiety drugs is considered a good option. There are many researches that now support this theory, and claim that an emergency setting can respond better with appropriate use of these drugs. It is however important to take into consideration the type of pain for which the patient presents with.While acute pain patients may not have a large chance of developing a dependence on the drugs, it is the chronically ill patients that are of more concern. Patients of cancer and arthritis etc. are prescribed with chronic pain medication in accordance with the severity of the pain. Most of these patients are given prescriptions, which may not be maintained or fully monitored. While in the hospital admitted cases, the identification of addiction and dependence patterns can be easily diagnosed and dealt with, the same is not true for patients who are living in homes and receiving their medications their.To address this problem the government again introduced various measures to help control the dispensing of such drugs, and periodic evaluation of such patients at outpatient settings. The administration of pain killer drugs is a measure as well as responsibility of the health care provider. IS PAIN ADEQUATELY MANAGED? Pain is defined as â€Å"an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual and potential tissue damage or described in terms of such damage† (Zempsky and Schenchter, 2003) Many physicians feel that pain in the emergency rooms is not treated very well.Studies have shown that pai n is the most common presenting complaint in the emergency department, yet is not so commonly handled or managed. (Sorelle, 2002) Researchers in studies have shown that many times the patients are given the pain medication very late or not at all. However, there are many factors that complicate the situation as simply patient comes, patient receives, and patient leaves. The time it may take for various preliminaries, the history taking and the final decision about whether the patient does need medication are among the various factors that can affect prompt medicine giving.The studies have pointed out the lack of information and lack of management of pain in the systematic manner. These studies therefore point out to the need of a good method of understanding and relieving pain. (Sorelle, 2002) Current pain management strategies recommended include the following: †¢ Introduction of low doses of drugs initially and gradually increase to reach the optimum effect for the patientâ⠂¬â„¢s pain relief. †¢ Combined drug therapy. This helps in reducing the doses of the drugs, and thereby prevents side effects of one drug†¢ Continuous analgesia, which is now being used widely in emergency settings. †¢ Use of behavioral methods along side pharmacological interventions to increase response. (Feinberg, 2004) OPIOID ANALGESICS IN THE MANGEMENT OF PAIN: Centrally acting opioids analgesics are used widely for the remedy of pain in the clinical settings. Tramadol is among the new line of opioids narcotic agents that are used for moderate to severe pain. It acts both as a weak opioids agonist and as an inhibitor of monoamine neurotransmitter reuptake.Both oral and parenteral forms have shown good results in the management of pain. (Scott and Perry, 2000) The advantage of this drug is that there is less dependence to this drug than other opioids. It does not affect the respiratory rate, and has lesser irritation effect on the GIT than other drugs. It also ha s a lesser risk of seizure than other drugs. (Feinberg, 2004) NSAIDS IN THE MANAGEMENT OF PAIN: The second most common line of drugs used in this group of medication is the COX 2 inhibitor drugs.These drugs have shown at least similar efficacy in the management of pain when compared to COX non specific drugs. Parecoxib sodium for example, has similar effects to non specific nsaids in the injectable form. These drugs have shown a superior activity to morphine for most measures of analgesic efficacy, and have a prolonged duration of action. (Scott et al,2002) USE OF PAIN SCALES FOR THE DIAGNOSIS OF PAIN SEVERITY Many researches are now questioning the value of the visual analog scales used widely to monitor the level of pain.Bodian et al, (2001) carried out a research to identify the relation between the changes of analgesic intravenous doses with the documentation on the VAS charts by the patients. The study also aimed to find out if watching previous VAS scores by the same patient h ad any influence on the later scoring of the pain. Bodian was able to conclude that â€Å"when pain is an outcome measure in research studies, grouping final VAS scores into a small number of categories provides greater clinical relevance for comparisons than using a full spectrum of measured values or changes in value.Seeing an earlier VAS form has no apparent influence on the later values. † (Bodian et al, 2001) PAIN MANAGEMNET IN CHILDREN: Pain management in children especially neonatal kids was not much debated until in the recent years. However, there are many recent methods that are used to alleviate pain in the recent pediatric settings. These include prevention of pain, where the pain is treated prophylactically. The identification and proper assessment of the pain is another crucial element in the pain management in children.The treatment of pain while initially considered to be limited to only providing analgesics, has recently evolved to include physical methods su ch as massages, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, and behavioral methods such as hypnosis, distraction, preparation and rehearsal. (Zempsky and Schechter, 2003) Current child pain management heavily relies on the information received from the parents, and uses them during the pain procedures as a source of comfort to the child.The introduction of painless analgesia technique is another method of inducing cooperation from the patient. And reduction of anxiety, a very important feature in a child is another very important area in the management of pain. (Zempsky and Schechter, 2003) Benzodiazepines are used very widely as sedatives in children with successful results. However, the only problem associated with it is the development of tolerance to it. In such children withdrawal symptoms cause severe distress and the child may express irritability, ataxia, aggression, hallucinations, and twitching.Other symptoms include inconsolable crying, agitation, vomiting, anxiety, hype ractivity, convulsions, tremors, jitterness, poor feeding gagging. The form used in children is midazolam, and is used for a variety of purposes. Their indications include sedation, amnesia, anticonvulsant, and anesthesia. (Bennett, 2001) If benzodiazepines are given to such children for more than 3 days, then these should be weaned off slowly. If the child exhibits withdrawal symptoms, then diazepam, a less intensive benzodiazepine can be given until the effect wears off.(Bennett, 2001) The pain scales used in children include the Oucher Scale, Faces Scale, Poker Chip Tool, Colored Analogue Scale, the Pain Thermometer, Visual Analogue Scale, and the McGill Pain Questionnaire respectively. The most common drugs used in pediatrics include opioids and NSAIDS. Included in the pain management techniques are behavioral approaches such as distraction etc. The current evaluation scales have improved considerably since the last two years, and have improved the outcomes of the pediatric pain management as well.(Zempsky and Schechter, 2003) THE USE OF ADJUVANT ANALGESICS IN THE MANAGEMENT OF PAIN. With increased understanding about the various modalities of pain, there are now novel and newer methods introduced in medicine to reduce pain in patients. The use of adjuvant drugs is used to enhance the efficacy of the analgesia and to improve the tolerance to pain. Drugs such as antidepressants, antihypertensives, local anesthetics, and CNS stimulants are widely used as adjuvants to control analgesia and to improve patients’ experience of pain.

Case Study, Amazon: From Book Seller to Service Provider Essay

Niklas Zennstrom stated: â€Å"When we look at investing, we always think about ‘how defensible is this, how likely is it that somebody is going to copy this. ‘ E-commerce tends to be something easy to copy because it’s execution. † Amazon is the world’s largest online retailer since the company opened in the garage of Jeff Bezos’, and its yearly are over 10 billion dollars. Many companies subsequently have copied Amazon and now compete for e-commerce profits; therefore companies like Google and Microsoft become an issue for Amazon. This has instigated Amazon to develop products for other e-commerce businesses, and now Amazon offers business- to -business e-commerce. This paper will discuss whether Amazon is moving away from its core competency of a leading online retailer, and if this is a wise strategy. A brief description of the Amazon database, how Amazon uses each component, and what data management issues may be encountered by Amazon, the relationship between data, information, and how Amazon tackles each will be included in this paper. To survive the invasion of companies like Google, Amazon has resolved to supply a series of computing, storage and other services that make its infrastructure available to businesses and people to assist them administer the technological and logistical parts of their company. Amazon only uses 10 percent of its processing capability, and offering these additional services will not impair other segments of the online retailer. This is a move away from its core expertise; however, this is a shrewd decision on the part of the Amazon Company. This strategy allows the company to boost earnings by using resources already on hand. This is similar to a landlord deciding to rent out the empty apartment as a storage unit, because it was not used by a family. The space was already there the landlord just found a new use for the vacant space. The Amazon database is made up of the Simple Storage Service (S3), the Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), and the Mechanical Turk. These services programs are an attempt by Amazon to be a principal competitor in the next development of the Internet. The Simple Storage Service allows businesses to warehouse data and applications on Amazon disk drives at 15 cents per gigabyte per month. For 10 cents an hour Amazon offers processing power on the Elastic Compute Cloud which is the same as one rudimentary server. The Mechanical Turk is the most complex of the three Amazon database components, and is commission based. Rainer, Turban wrote in the: Introduction to Information Systems: Supporting and Transforming Business, 2nd Edition, that the: â€Å"Mechanical Turk service combines processing power with networks of real people who are paid to do the kind of work that machines cannot do well, such as recognizing inappropriate content in images or transcribing audio. Companies post pieces of work onto the Mechanical Turk and pay people online, for which Amazon receives a 10 percent commission. † The data management issue that might be encountered by Amazon is how much space they can rent out before it takes away space and time from the online retailer system. A second issue would be what Amazon must do when Google and Microsoft start to copy and develop similar products at a lower price. Amazon concentrate on declining sales by increasing its productivity to ensure investors will see the profit growth they expected form the online retailer. Amazon decided to offer services that no other online retailer provided and this is how they tackled all their current issues. Amazon is helping thousands of companies store and debug their data information, therefore all three programs can be used together by a client to store e-mails after they check them for malware, and see what keywords draw prospective consumers to their sites. I think Amazon will succeed goal to revolutionize retailing as long as they understand how to adapt quickly in business.